Taranto's back...

Yeah, I know, half of you probably can't stand OpinionJournal's Best of the Web. Alas, I have a considerable fondness for it, and it's for links like this one: The scam that caused a painful sting in my mailbox.

Oh, dear, that's not a very good title by Polly Toynbee, is it?

Funny, funny article, though - in that actually, we're not really laughing with you sense. It seems that our heroine got a letter from a Nigerian schoolgirl asking for money. Seems that said schoolgirl needed 200 pounds to finish school, being an orphan and all, she gave references, which apparently checked out, Toynbee cut a check and - guess what? - yup, the writer's bank account keeps getting raided for cash.

Big surprise, really. Cold call, no way to really check it out, the girl's parents were supposedly victims of Ebola, for crying out loud: this is one reason why relief organizations exist (like this one), to make sure that money goes where it should. So, is it Toynbee's fault?

Naah. Sure, she's an idiot, but in the end she lays the blame on the good old US of A:

The line between honest and dishonest business is easily blurred. We point fingers at Nigeria, this richest and best-educated country in Africa that should be a mighty power had it not been so catastrophically misgoverned, with legendary corruption. Yet what kind of global honesty is promoted, what model of good capitalism and good government? The US is about to hold another election that will be largely bought and sold by business and oil interests. Think of the corruption that US and UK conservatives carelessly unleashed upon the former Soviet Union in the name of extreme free market ideology.

The image of capitalism now being spread about the world is cowboy stuff: little gleaned from America extols the virtue of regulation, restraint and control. We reap from the third world what we sow: if some Nigerians learned lessons in capitalism from global oil companies that helped corrupt and despoil that land, it is hardly surpising they absorbed some of the Texan oil values that now rule the White House. Alas, the querulous, navel-gazing and increasingly non-internationalist EU seems in no mood at present to offer a different and better face of capitalism to the world.

I swear to God, it's gotten to the point that I think that some pundits would blame the current administration for too much starch in their shirts. I mean, I'm glad and all that Toynbee has so forthrightly admitted to the world that she's an idiot who'll give away her bank information to anybody with a good enough sob-story (Ebola, forsooth!)... but leaping from this to the perils of modern capitalism seems a bit much*. Although I have to admit: being able to sneer at American capitalism, the Bush Administration and the European Union all in one paragraph takes a little doing. A pity she couldn't have given a link to a real Nigerian charity (such as Songhai Charities): of course, there's often wordcount issues on these articles, and we wouldn't want to miss a prime opportunity to do some America-bashing, would we?

Moe

*Note that I did not say, "a bit much even for the Guardian". They're often a bit more nuanced than they're given credit for by my esteemed fellow Death Beasts. 'Course, sometimes they're not. This would be a 'not'.

Comments

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I've heard that Bush's economic and environmental policies caused the death of the dinosaurs! Why does he hate reptiles?

[James Casey]

Moe, come on. "Blame America" is easy and you shouldn't be surprised. Humour it. You're the obvious target; ubiquitous, humungous, and other words ending in 'ous'. Not 'cous-cous'.

To be fair, though, the amount of pies you have your big fingers in, and no one being totally infallible (save the Pope when speaking Ex Cathedra), the US has got to mess it up on at least a few occasions. You're just involved more than anyone else; it stands to reason. Just the law of averages. And I'm not saying you're at fault in this case.

Toynbee, and I've been reading her for several years, I either almost totally agree with or almost totally disagree. This one (when I read it a few days ago) is one of the latter.

[Moe Lane]

"Moe, come on. "Blame America" is easy and you shouldn't be surprised."

Oh, I'm not. I'm not even offended, much. Just wondering if there's anything that my country isn't going to be blamed for eventually. Entropy, maybe. :)